


How to Train your Padawan

by Firecadet



Series: Firecadet Soft Wars stories [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Clones being clones, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Honest, How to Train a Jedi, Jedi Training, Soft Wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25615420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firecadet/pseuds/Firecadet
Summary: Jedi Training is multi-faceted. Some elements are exciting, and fun.Others... not so much.
Relationships: CC-5052 | Bly & Aayla Secura & Maris Brood, CC-5052 | Bly/Aayla Secura
Series: Firecadet Soft Wars stories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1986859
Comments: 13
Kudos: 105
Collections: Open Source Soft Wars





	How to Train your Padawan

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, again, to Chess_Blackfyre for creating this particular sub-cast, and letting me borrow them occasionally.

“Bly.” Aayla said, with one of her patented ‘I’m not upset or annoyed at you, but I am disappointed’ expressions. “Would you like to explain this?”

The twi’lek jedi held out a life-sized target, made using GAR supply crates, and cut into a broadly human outline, with veins and arteries painted onto it. There were also three steak knives, a cake fork, two spoon handles, a metal kebab skewer and five forks embedded into it, along with a pair of fish knives, several bladed articles Aayla strongly suspected were normally associated with cheese slicing, along with a length of weighted cheese wire embedded into the neck of the target, wrapped around it several times. With the exception of the cheese wire, all of the cutlery was positioned to transect or penetrate an artery.

“Maris asked for my help with her biology homework. Saint suggested that it would help her visualise the circulatory structures of a humanoid if they were painted onto a reference board.”

Aayla’s eyebrow rose further. “And the cutlery?”

“Well…”

“Bly.”

Bly had absolutely no compunctions about what he had to do next.

“We left it on the hangar deck.”

Aayla fixed him with a look.

“Bly, most of this cutlery originated from the admittedly oversized set of formal cutlery provided for Maris’ formal dining training. That is normally kept locked away in the training room when it’s not being used.”

“Someone must have broken in, General.”

“Bly.” Aayla gave him the ‘I’m not mad’ face.

“I’ll talk to the boys, General.”

“Bly, I know full well it was you and Maris.” Aayla said, with a sigh.

Bly didn’t respond.

“Bly, I get it. I really do. It comes with a holographic instructor, who is one of the most arrogant people I’ve ever come across in my entire career as a Jedi. I know the sort of cutting comments he makes if you hold the fish knife wrong.”

Bly’s mouth quirked.

“And I know that Maris… has struggled with that.”

“I’ve noticed.” There was a slight grin that crept into his voice, regardless of how hard he tried to suppress it.”

“Bly…”

“I may have adjusted the settings slightly, Cyare.”

“Bly, you didn’t…”

“Too right I did.”

Aayla couldn’t contain the musical peels of laughter at that point. “You projected him over a target, and when he annoyed Maris…”

“She could throw whatever she was holding at him and know what the outcome would have been on an actual humanoid.” Bly completed, with a smile.

“This… doesn’t help… her… training…” Aayla wheezed out, between peels of laughter. “She can’t throw cutlery at a formal meal!”

“She’s almost ready for phase two. We’re waiting for the shipment.”

“Do I want to know?”

“I requisitioned some champagne flutes, wine glasses, martini glasses and a few different varieties of tankard.”

“BLY!” Aayla shouted. “Nowhere in the Jedi Diplomatic Curriculum does ‘Able to kill man with glassware’ feature.”

“It’s a vital skill.”

Aayla’s response was a guttural, non-verbal scream of frustration.

“Did you know that the etiquette hologram has scripted responses for having knives thrown at it?”

Aayla stared at him with goggle eyes. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Hmm… well, perhaps you should show me the adapted hologram in action. So that I can assess the value of the modifications.”

Bly smiled, and produced the emitter, before stepping back, and handing Aayla a pack of cutlery.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

**327th Star Corps Secure Command Intranet, Messaging Tool.**

_CC-5052: The plan worked.  
  
Jett’ika: Can I come out of hiding yet?  
  
CC-5052: That depends on if you want to see the General letting off steam. Remind me not to annoy her on purpose. That serving fork would sting._

_Jett’ika: OMW._

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Maris barrelled into the bay, just in time to see her master run at a wall, holding three steak knives between the fingers of each hand, and, bouncing off it in a flip, release the knives in a silver spray, resulting in six strikes into areas of the target that would have immensely inconvenienced almost any humanoid.

The target spoke, after a moment.

“Padawan, throwing knives at me does not improve your table manners. Killing the host with a steak knife is considered bad manners on thirty thousand, four hundred and eighty-five planets.”

On the target, a number of items of cutlery were embedded into places Maris hadn’t aimed them, including a two-foot serving fork in a site which was enough to make her wince.

“Maris.” Aayla greeted her padawan.

“Master.”

“Bly filled me in on how you’ve been letting off steam in your etiquette lessons.”

Maris blushed; the red glow extremely visible against her chalk-white skin.

“Maris, I’m not angry or disappointed.”

“You’re not?”

“I understand how draining that sort of lesson is. I went through them as a Padawan, and there are even some Jedi who start their training as Younglings.”

“I… uh…”

“Maris, it’s ok to struggle with some of your lessons. Especially stuff that, as far as you’re concerned, has absolutely zero relevance to you or anything you do.”

“It’s just… boring.”

Aayla smiled. “I know. It’s boring, pointless, and something you’ll only ever use a handful of times in your entire career as a Jedi. But you need to know it, so that, when you do need to make an impression, you can.”

Maris looked faintly mutinous, at that, before nodding. “It’s like those lessons that Bariss complains about. How to write a letter to a Duke, and how the salutation varies depending on where their estate is, and their relationship to the King…”

“Miral is… very formal.” Aayla responded, non-critically. “Bariss has been being taught those skills all her life.”

“And she…” Maris stopped talking before she said anything inappropriate.

“Finds it frustrating.”

“Something like that.” Maris wasn’t going to elaborate on the rant in the Padawan-Commander group chat, where Bariss had expressed a desire to insert a gold fringed calling card into a very uncomfortable and unhygienic place belonging to the compiler of Debrett’s, the customary etiquette manual used by Miralian Jedi.

Aayla’s lips quirked.

“Well, Padawan-mine, you can rest assured that you won’t be examined on those skills. As long as you can manage to master the correct uses of cutlery, you’ll make it through the module. And I won’t object if you occasionally spend some of your exercise time in cargo-hold three.”

Maris’ eyes lit up at the suggestion. Cargo-hold three provided the Intrepid with her murderball arena, along with six octagons and the 327th’s strength and conditioning equipment.

“Although if you turn up in Medbay, or Galahad determines the need for a quiet conversation about your exercise routines, I will notice.” Aayla cautioned her padawan, to give herself deniability about how Maris, inevitably, would ending up suplexing a clone.

“Got it.” With a grin, Maris disappeared at speed.

Bly looked over at Aayla, once Maris had disappeared.

“You know that’s going to backfire.”

“Oh…” Aayla said, with a grin. “I’m counting on it.”

“Counting on it?”

“I’m putting her in a fight with almost no rules, against trained soldiers twice her size.”

“Aren’t you worried about her getting hurt?”

“I’m more worried about them not teaching her what she needs to learn.”

Bly crossed over to Aayla, confused.

“What this part of her training will teach her, better than anything else I can provide, is how to fight through the pain, and improvise in the moment.”

“I’m more concerned about the poor Vod who manages to beat her.” Bly growled, stroking one of Aayla’s lekku. “Particularly if she gets hurt. Everything in our training teaches us to protect Cadets, especially Jedi.”

“Well, I’m sure they won’t damage her too badly, then.” Aayla said, leaning closer to the clone. “Now… I think we need a Command Review, between the senior ranking Jedi and Clone.” She leant over and kissed his cheek. “Just to ensure that there are no… concerns about recent decisions.”

“I don’t have any at all.” Bly growled, arm around her shoulders, as they ambled in the direction of her quarters and the oversized bunk that had been installed to facilitate Aayla’s lekku-pillow, according to Major Galahad Dulak.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

**Two weeks later…**

Looking at the four occupied beds in the medbay, Aayla couldn’t keep her laughter in. Maris was lying on one of them, her leg in a cast, and a number of bruises and abrasions visible below the medical gown. Three of the 327th’s larger, more battered troops were in the other three, wearing a mixture of casts, braces and bandages.

“You said they fell down the stairs of the command tower?” Aayla asked Galahad.

“They did, General. According to the squad that delivered them, Boxer, Thump and Plenty were coming down the command tower stairs, when they lost their footing and slipped. Commander Brood was a few steps ahead of them, and tried to catch them with the Force, but couldn’t get a grip on them before they landed on top of her and they all rolled onto the landing in a big pile.”

“I see.” There was a rather pregnant pause. “Well, if they fell down the stairs, I don’t need to know anymore, Major.”

Aayla stepped out, leaving the four of them to Galahad.

Bly was waiting for her outside.

“She’s OK?” He asked.

“She broke her leg at some point. Other than that, she’s fine.”

“I’m not sure why she tried to catch all three of them, rather than get out of the way, General.”

“Bly.”

“I’m having maintenance try to identify the trip hazard in that stairwell.”

“Bly!”

“General?”

“Bly, I know exactly how she broke her leg. She broke it when Thump sacked her while she was piledriving Plenty.”

“Sir?”

“Bly, stop pretending not to know. Or that there isn’t a recording, or that seventeen double shifts, nine hundred assorted alderaannian, coruscanti and kauti ration packs and Force-knows what sundries and knick-knacks didn’t change hands. Or that the SBD-head-on-a-spike that appeared in Maris’ quarters while she was being stretchered to medbay isn’t a trophy.”

Bly just looked at her, with slightly glassy eyes.

“Remember who _my_ Master was. And while he might be one of the most disreputable, shady, ignominious and occasionally outright crooked Jedi in the Order, he’s also one of the best Shadows in the Order.”

“So…”

“So, go get your ice-cream, snacks and some drinks.” Aayla completed with a smile. “I need an expert opinion on my Padawan’s improvements since she began her new training program.”

Bly smiled. Some Jedi were aloof or up themselves. His General was anything but.

**Author's Note:**

> As an author, I am extremely used to characters doing their own thing.
> 
> How the Kriff Maris ending up having a cage-fight with three clones came out of the initial concept regarding etiquette lessons is anyone's guess.
> 
> Hopefully, people enjoyed regardless.


End file.
